


serpent matchmaking service

by doctormissy



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: 6000 Years of Pining (Good Omens), Comedy, Crack, Crowley Has a Pet Snake (Good Omens), Do Not Take Seriously, Gay Panic, Getting Together, Humor, Ineffable Idiots (Good Omens), Lack of Communication, Love Confessions, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Outsider, Post-Canon, Snakes, and boy is she sassy, aziraphale knits snake jumpers!, pov antoinette, who's a snake
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-05
Updated: 2020-02-05
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:35:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,250
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22577164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doctormissy/pseuds/doctormissy
Summary: Getting an angel and demon to admit their feelings for each other really shouldn’t be a part of a snake’s job description, Antoinette mused, but she’d be damned if she didn’t do it anyway. If they speakone more wordon the subject of star-crossed lovers or some other whatnot, she’s going to strangle someone, and itwon’tjust be a mouse.Or: Crowley gets a pet snake, who subsequently becomes stuck as an unfortunate intermediary between his and Aziraphale’s mutual pining, and decides to take matters into her own… well, whatever the snake equivalent for hands is, anyway.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 283





	serpent matchmaking service

**Author's Note:**

> This one's for all the Antoinette fans out here. 
> 
> For those who don't know, she's from [twitter cryptids](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21607198/chapters/51521206), the infamous twitter fic. I didn't put this in that series, because it's somewhat divergent, but you can still imagine it as the same universe. 
> 
> Anyway. I hope you enjoy this silly little thing as much as I enjoyed writing it! ♡

It wasn’t insofar as Antoinette had had many expectations about her new home. A nice warm place to nap, a weekly mouse, some greenery to curl around: that was all a snake such as her needed to live, and that was what she received.

It was just that if you asked her what she’d thought when the actual Serpent of Eden, the Father of All Snakekind, adopted her from the terrarium at the back of the shop where all mice were unreachable and that one parrot wouldn’t stop screeching swear words at the chameleon when no one was listening, she would say she’d have expected… more.

Or something different. Not this.

Oh, Crowley’s flat was comparable to paradise, what with the plant room where she spent most of her time, and the UV lamp was simply wonderful, and she even got a full-on _rat_ sometimes. She wasn’t complaining; she’d never! Living with Crowley was a privilege, rightfully fit for a _queen_.

He’d said she’d been named for one, anyway. She’d felt very proud of herself all of a sudden, because it sounded awfully important. She wished she could tell the ball python from next door[1] about it!

Yes. He’d _said_. Crowley, being part-snake himself, talked to her in her own tongue on a regular basis. None of the humans ever did that, primitive beings, unable to understand animals and always so keen on training them to listen to _them_ and to obey _their_ will. But he wasn’t human. He was someone the other snakes could only dream of.

But that was just the problem here.

She’s been staying with Crowley for about a month now[2], and for almost the entirety of it, he wouldn’t shut up about this not-snake called Aziraphale. He was on about him all. The. Time. And she, poor boa constrictor as she was, was the target of his lovelorn monologues.

A shudder went down her spine just thinking about it. She’d thought she’d be a treasured companion to her Father, and don’t get her wrong, she _was_ , but he took to mistaking her for a bloody confessional, and that was _not_ in her job description.

Speaking of, she could hear footsteps on concrete, and stuck her head through the rich foliage to see whether he came bearing food—she _was_ rather hungry—water for the leaves, or more pining nonsense. Or all three.

It usually was all three.

She sniffed the air with her tongue and, yes, there was definitely a mouse incoming. Nice. Very nice. Antoinette unwound her body from the ficus and slowly lowered herself onto the soft, dark soil.

‘There you are!’ Crowley hissed[3]. He took out a little brown mouse from a pocket in his jacket and dangled it in the air. It squeaked. Oh, the sweet sound! ‘Are we feeling productive or lazy today, eh?’

‘Need to stretch a bit,’ she replied. Crowley let go of the mouse, and it scurried into a corner behind the pots. Antoinette took her sweet time crawling its way. They tasted better marinaded in fear. It also meant that a few drops of water landed on her scales.

Crowley inspected the ficus. ‘You haven’t been tough on the leaves, have you?’ he asked Antoinette suspiciously, and violently spritzed water on said leaves.

‘Well, some of them might’ve squished, but honestly, the ficus can handle some endurance training,’ she said lazily.

‘Right, you’re right,’ he said to Antoinette. Then he switched into English. She couldn’t understand much of it, but it sounded like he was giving the plant one of his Lectures. He did the whole circle, checking for leaf spots and berating the vegetation. It quivered. The mouse ran away.

She caught it in the other corner and swallowed. Very nice indeed. And then Crowley was picking her up, and she knew he’d carry her to the living room, sit on the sofa, and reminisce about Aziraphale. Sometimes, she wished she were allowed to drink that brown liquid[4] he was always having.

‘I’m meeting Aziraphale later today,’ he began. He glanced at that thing on his hand that told the time. Antoinette wound herself around his neck and shoulders. ‘In two hours. D’you think I should wear that new jacket I got? We’re going to a museum.’

‘To laugh about dinosaurs again?’ she said with the air of someone who was letting out an utterly done sigh.

Never has she said she didn’t talk back.

‘Anything to make him laugh, sweetheart. Fuck, his eyes when—’ He ran his hands across his face. Hands. What a strange concept. ‘Yeahhh. To laugh about dinosaurs and make fun of kids who are excited about them. Might take him out for wine later. Or is that too much? I don’t want it to look like a date…’

‘But you want it to be a date,’ she stated. They’ve been over this too many times to count. Crowley loved this Aziraphale person, but he wasn’t sure whether Aziraphale reciprocated, because once he’d told him he went too fast or something or other and never made any move to suggest otherwise. But they went on dates, whatever those were.

Probably not the kind of fruit[5].

Except, it was complicated.

Antoinette didn’t have experience with boa constrictors of the male persuasion yet, having spent her entire life in that terrarium, but if she were to go about this whole mating thing, she’d _tell_ her chosen partner and had eggs and little snakelings. Simple. But _that_ walking snake was desperate to avoid the subject, and she was beginning to think he’ll _never_ have little snakelings[6].

Scandalous.

Yeah. Bottom line was, she had thought the Serpent of Eden would be a little wiser than that.

‘Well, I mean, nghhh, possibly?’ he said. ‘But I’m not sure if _he_ —I mean, the _Ritz_? Does he think _those_ are dates? Are those dates? But he’s never said…’

She slid a little lower and turned her head to face him. ‘Just do it. And wear the jacket.’

‘Yeah. Sure. Thanks.’ He ran a hand across her scales affectionately and threw his head back against the headrest. He made that groaning sound she couldn’t do and said, very loudly, ‘What _is_ life?’

She kind of wanted to reply with _this unending mix of torture and pleasure_ , with an emphasis on the torture, but she kept her mouth shut and listened to his blabbering.

•

It, of course, did not end there.

Soon after that museum not-date, Crowley started taking Antoinette to Aziraphale’s[7]. Why exactly she had no clue; he’d muttered something about a change of scenery or suchlike, or maybe he wanted to show her off. Being terribly curious by nature—went with living with the Serpent of Eden—she didn’t let something as trifle quench her interest, though.

Meeting the infamous angel, well. Might just be the most exciting thing to happen to her, right after the day Crowley had taken her to _his_ home.

If not his dusty old books—too hard to rest comfortably on—she found she did like Aziraphale. Couldn’t exactly understand Crowley’s waxing lyrical about him, but there was just _something_ about him that felt like lying under her UV lamp.

But… well… the whole miserable will-they won’t-they affair also got terribly, undeniably _worse_.

Aziraphale, as it turned out, was an actual angel[8], and therefore understood and spoke the language of every creature known to Earth and beyond. He treated her no different than he would a human being, and too conversed with her on a regular basis. That would be a brilliant observation, per se, if he weren’t:

  1. chattier than Crowley,
  2. always on about Crowley in the _exact_ same way as Crowley was on about him,
  3. completely oblivious to the previous point.



Crowley also made it his habit to leave her at the bookshop and then leave when it suited him, thinking Aziraphale his snake-sitter since he clearly warmed up to Antoinette despite his initial scepticism, and so she oft found herself alone with a stream of nervous words, _again_.

Just a snake caught in the middle of something ancient, incomprehensible, and so _stupid_. Nothing to worry about.

(She really, really, _really_ didn’t sign up for this.)

‘Oh, my dear Crowley, I hope he’s safe wherever he’s always disappearing off to,’ Aziraphale said and sipped at that sweet-smelling brown liquid. Tea. He threw the door a few uncertain glances. ‘I know Hell promised to leave him alone, but I can’t help but worry for him, you see? I can’t imagine it if—if—’

Antoinette, stretched on the headrest[9] next to him, moved so her head lay on his shoulder. She hissed, ‘Tell that to him, not to me.’

‘But it’s silly, me, an angel, worrying for a demon’s life, because rationally, I have no reason to…’ He gulped all of his tea at once. The pot clattered against the saucer. ‘I don’t want him to—’

‘To?’ she prompted.

He exhaled. ‘Laugh at me.’

If snakes could snort, or roll their eyes, Antoinette would be doing it now. ‘Trust me, he won’t. Do you even know where he’s going?’

‘Well, no.’ He craned his neck to look at her. ‘Do you?’

‘Afraid not. But he’s always smelling of vegetation,’ she answered. She could always tell these sorts of things, having a very refined tongue. She flicked it in the air and changed the topic. ‘You smell like books and something sweet.’

‘I baked some biscuits earlier. I’m not very good at it, I’m afraid, always burn them,’ he chuckled nervously. ‘I was trying to make Crowley’s favourites.’

‘Throw them out. Take him to dinner, for Monty Python’s sake.’

‘Ah, yes. We had pizza the other day, did he tell you about it? But I’m not sure if…’ He sighed. ‘Demons don’t do dates and relationships, do they? Especially not with angels who… pushthemaway.’

If snakes could give pats on the back, she’d be doing that too. They were both _idiots_. Well, bumping her snout against his neck was bound to do. ‘You’d be surprised.’

‘Well.’ He shifted on the sofa, turning to face her. He regarded her long body, her tail hanging down from the headrest and resting on a fuzzy pillow. ‘For now, how do you feel about a jumper? It’s only about to get colder now, and I’ve been meaning to get more knitting practice[10] in for, oh, twenty years?’

Antoinette considered this. She _could_ tell him about Crowley’s rants, blunt and matter-of-fact. Insinuating things clearly didn’t seem to be enough, because they were _both_ stuck in their head and already had formed an opinion on the other without checking for facts. No-snakeling people.

But she didn’t have enough intel for that right now. More reconnaissance was needed, she decided, and said, ‘I heard pastel colours were fashionable.’

Aziraphale smiled and bumped her snout in return. The lamp-feeling intensified. ‘Oh, lovely! Will he like it, do you think?’

‘He’ll be horrified. It will be hilarious[11].’

•

Two more months passed. It was a different year now, apparently; the last sign on the piece of paper that hung on one of the walls was missing a bit[12], so something must have changed, anyway. Antoinette didn’t get years. Or time in general. But she’s got ten more mice since the last time, and a bird that died when it flew straight into Crowley’s window.

The feathers weren’t very nice, she observed. Tickly. She told Crowley she’d rather stick to a rodent-based diet.

But that wasn’t the point. Or that Aziraphale has given her two more jumpers. The point was that the idiocy of her two fathers only seemed to escalate. She has gathered a sufficient amount of information to be able to safely deem them incapable of proper communication and of recognising that what they were doing were, in fact, dates.

She was a very smart snake, in case you didn’t notice.

Getting an angel and demon to admit their feelings for each other really shouldn’t be a part of a snake’s job description, Antoinette mused, but she’d be damned if she didn’t do it anyway. If they speak _one more word_ on the subject of star-crossed lovers or some other whatnot, she’s going to strangle someone, and it _won’t_ just be a mouse.

She just needed an opportunity, as it were. All of them in the same place. Oh, how convenient it was that both parties involved could understand her!

Luckily for her, opportunities didn’t take too long to present themselves. 

Just a mere day after she’d made her decision, her demonic father made a decision to bring her along for the ride and took her to the bookshop. Aziraphale and he were to play something called chess and drink large amounts of red liquid for a change, or something or other she didn’t care for. He didn’t want to leave her in the flat alone though, which, considerate, and also just the thing she needed to get them out of their misery.

And herself. Mostly herself.

Wrapped in Jumper #3, some sort of flag[13] if Aziraphale was to be believed, she dozed on the Bentley’s passenger seat and did a mental tally of her Plan. It was a rather straightforward plan, so it didn’t take long. And it wasn’t like much could go wrong, either[14].

She crawled on Crowley’s arms before he got out of the crawling machine—Bentley—and waited. She couldn’t understand the conversation, but bottles and awkward glances and wobbly smiles were exchanged, and she thought, yes, _this is the time, let’s get the idiot walking noodles to act!_

‘D’you want to stay with me, eh, sweetie?’ Crowley asked her in serpent-tongue. Aziraphale mumbled something in English[15], which made him warm around the cheeks. He ignored him. ‘Or the in the sofa pillow fort?’

‘Right here, thankssssss,’ Antoinette said. Crowley and Aziraphale walked to the room in the back. She loved the sofa pillow fort, assembled by Aziraphale just for her, but sacrifices had to be made every now and then. Not that she didn’t like lounging on Crowley’s shoulders, no sir.

It _was_ a privilege.

They sat down, and Aziraphale leant conspiratorially close and said, ‘That old serpent hasn’t threatened to throw away your jumpers, has he? Because then I’d have to have a word with him.’

‘No,’ she said, and let her jaw hang open in her best impression of a grin. You can surely imagine how her possibilities were rather limited in that area. ‘But you need to have a word with him anyway.’

Crowley stiffened. Aziraphale looked puzzled. ‘Oh?’

_Oh_. She was going to enjoy this one.

‘Listen,’ she began, looking the angel straight in the eye. Then she turned her head the other way and found Crowley raising an eyebrow. Those were funny things too, eyebrows, but this was not the time. ‘I’ve had enough. You both made me your confessional, so suffer the consequences now. I’ve been trying to do this the easy way, and I’ve been nudging you,’ she bobbed her head towards Crowley, ‘for months. But no. Stupid demon.’

Crowley lifted his sunglasses. His eyes were wide and jumping between her and Aziraphale in a rather manic way. ‘Wh—wha—Antoinette?’

‘You love Aziraphale,’ she said and turned to Aziraphale, whose cheeks were getting rather warm too. ‘And you love Crowley. You told me repeatedly, so don’t deny shit. You’re just too stupid to realise the other could possibly feel the same. So there you go. I’ll be going to the pillow fort now, and you better get it together by the time I wake up.’

She left Crowley’s still-rigid shoulders and crawled inside the assembly of fuzzy pillows, almost too smug for a snake to possibly be, and satisfied with the way they played into her plan. She wouldn’t understand the next bit anyway—if they ever decided to unfreeze their mouths—so she might as well take a well-deserved nap and dream about hunting rabbits.

Or a future that had more ficus nap time and less celestial relationship drama.

•

Crowley tried to speak. Emphasis on the _tried_. All that came out of his mouth was a sort of unintelligible throaty sound that didn’t help the situation in the least.

Okay. Let’s try again.

‘Hnnng,’ he said. ‘I mean—I—that _snake_!’

‘Let’s not drag the snake into it; she’s perfectly innocent,’ said Aziraphale, blinking. Aziraphale, who was sitting in his usual armchair, and who, despite the centuries of evidence in favour of the contrary, _loved him_.

Him.

Crowley.

And he’s been talking to Antoinette about it, much in the same way _Crowley’s_ been talking to her about, and really, it was his own fault for being dramatic, wasn’t it? Why was he even _surprised_ that he’s passed some of that onto his snake daughter, and now she went and staged an intervention?

He’d probably be proud of her if four-fifths of his brain weren’t currently busy categorising the thoughts of _Aziraphale_ and _Crowley_ and _love_ and _stupid_ and _wake up_ , all mashed together and circling back and forth at a rare moment of high brain-cell traffic.

He also realised Aziraphale was saying something else. He snapped back into focus. ‘What?’

‘I said, is it… true?’ He wrung his hands and looked at him expectantly.

‘That I love you or that I’ve been venting to my snake about it?’ Crowley blurted. He winced a second later, but he couldn’t take it back now. It was out.

What he _could_ do was try and pretend to be nonchalant about it, though, and so he leant back on the sofa in what he supposed was a sexy manner[16] and added, ‘Because both is true, angel, I mean, have you really not noticed?’

No, that sounded wrong.

‘No, that sounds wrong,’ he said and licked his lips. ‘What I meant to say is, of course I love you, Aziraphale, you’re…’ He blew out his cheeks. Words, _words_! He hated words. ‘You’re perfect. How could I not?’

‘I—I thought—’ Aziraphale looked at the carpet somewhat guiltily. Crowley thought he knew what he was thinking. He’d probably be thinking it too, were he in his shoes, and has in fact thought about it five times a century on average.

‘Demons can feel love,’ he said, jerking his head in thought as if they were just talking about what to have for lunch. The brain was still processing. ‘It’s a choice, Aziraphale, and most of them don’t make it. But it’s not gone, or whatever you’ve been thinking for the past six thousand years.’

‘Oh,’ he said. Then, once more, ‘ _Oh_.’ A smile like a rock has just dropped from his heart and took all the weight from it coloured his lips. ‘I suppose I have been rather silly, haven’t I?’

‘No, angel, it’s a logical conclusion to make, all things considered.’ Crowley crossed his legs. ‘But since we’re already broaching the subject, aren’t you supposed to be like a big love detector? I thought… well, I thought that you must’ve known and ignored it because you… ngk.’

‘I never felt anything… special, around you, Crowley. Just regular amounts of love that are bound to be everywhere humans are.’

‘Okay,’ he nodded. ‘Okay, but just for the Hell of it. This general—’ He made a wide-encompassing gesture— ‘love, has it always been there? As far as you can remember?’

Aziraphale looked puzzled as he answered. ‘Well, I—suppose?’

‘Since Eden?’ Crowley prodded further. He had a theory and was starting to be quite certain it was correct. He also didn’t like to admit this to himself, or talk about it, but that blasted, precious snake has already made him, and there was no sense in chasing a ship that’s already sailed, eh?

‘Possibly? There have been humans since Eden, must’ve loved the place. Why? What are you…’ His eyes widened almost cartoonishly before he could say _getting at_.

‘Right. Yeah, angel. That.’

Aziraphale covered his mouth. ‘All this time? Oh, my _dear_.’

Crowley snorted. ‘She was right. We’ve both been stupid, eh?’

‘Well…’ Aziraphale chuckled. He wiggled in his armchair. ‘I suppose I should tell you that I love you too. For clarification,’ he said, and punctuated it with a nod. His face really _was_ almost like a UV lamp, Crowley observed.

‘Glad we’re on the same page, then,’ he said through a smile.

‘It’s not funny, Crowley.’

‘Isn’t it?’ Aziraphale pouted. Crowley couldn’t help the grin that replaced the plain old smile. ‘Just a little bit funny. C’mon, angel, I mean, you can’t find this stuff in your Victorian romance books.’

‘Some are close enough, though,’ Aziraphale noted. Of course he did. But next thing Crowley knew, he was on his feet and approaching the sofa and Crowley didn’t even know he did it, definitely didn’t give it the approve-stamp it in his brain, but he was standing up too, and suddenly they found themselves face-to-face, and when did it get so hot in here?

‘And as far as the novels go, this is where the torn heroine usually kisses the subject of her affections and afflictions, and then they move to a mansion in the countryside—’

Crowley gulped. ‘Which one of us is the torn heroine in this situation then?’

Aziraphale answered the question by grasping the lapels of Crowley’s jacket and sealing their lips with a kiss.

Antoinette, who had changed her mind about the nap, in the end, watched it occur and mentally patted herself on the back, for she had no hands to speak of. She was one proud snake, she was.

Well, at least until they collapsed on the sofa in a tangle of limbs and centuries-old longing and startled her into hiding in those pillows after all. Or, now that she thought about, finding a different room to hide in altogether.

* * *

1 i.e. the terrarium next to hers.[✿]

2 The Apocalypse failed to happen, and so did any significant progress in his and Aziraphale’s relationship. Frustrated, bored, and bordering on lonely, Crowley got up one fine October day and decided to get a pet snake, just to do something, to feel better about himself. Or something. He wasn’t entirely sure himself.[✿]

3 Translation provided by the Snake-English Dictionary written by none other than himself, proofed by Bastian the rattlesnake demon and Marcellus the Parselmouth from Gloucester.[✿]

4 Tea, scotch, or, when he was feeling fancy and/or undecided, tea with scotch.[✿]

5 They went on dates in Morocco. They grew everywhere, fresh and sweet, and Aziraphale could never resist this sort of temptation when he saw one. And they didn’t grow in his usual part of Europe. Crowley laughed at the irony of this more than once, because really, it was almost even like a date-date, and language was ridiculous.[✿]

6 Well, no, he wouldn’t, but she didn’t know that. The metaphor worked surprisingly well, though.[✿]

7 ‘What’s your opinion on snakes? As pets I mean?’ he’d asked him once. Aziraphale went on a tangent about this and that and finished with _what’s all this about, my dear?_ ‘Errr, nothing, really. Might’ve got one last week ‘cos I felt like it. Her name’s Antoinette. She’d be charmed, I’m sure.’[✿]

8 Hence the intrinsic feeling of basking under a lamp when being near him.[✿]

9 She had to give him that. His sofa was infinitely comfier than Crowley’s leather one.[✿]

10 He had learnt to knit in the late nineteenth century, but unfortunately enough didn’t find much time for it in the very busy twentieth century, so he was rather out of practice and felt like it needed rectifying. And he’s already made a snake jumper once before, for Crowley, so he might as well get started there.

It had been black and red, by the way, and Crowley claimed to hate even the idea of it, but secretly, he put it on when the nights were cold in winter and he didn’t feel like sleeping in his human body.[✿]

11 When Crowley came by the bookshop some seven hours later and saw Aziraphale sitting on the same spot on the sofa, but with Antoinette wound around his body and wearing a pink-orange-beige tartan onesie, he stopped dead in his tracks and said, ‘Aziraphale, what the bloody _hell_ is that?’

Aziraphale perked up. ‘I made her a jumper! She liked the idea, didn’t she, Her Majesty?’

‘I thought your face would be hilarious,’ said Antoinette.

Crowley’s jaw hung open, and he closed it just as soon. He stalked over to the sofa and carefully extracted her from Aziraphale’s arms. ‘I’m taking my snake back now, thanks,’ he said, glaring. The jumper, however, stayed on.[✿]

12 Or, 2018 turned to 2019. It was January now.[✿]

13 Snakes were mostly colour-blind, only able to see shades of grey and beige and blue to some extent, so she couldn’t really tell, but it was pink-yellow-blue. Jumper #2 was simply blue with yellow pinstripes, because Aziraphale only had so many yarn varieties.[✿]

14 Well, she’d be surprised just how things _could_ go wrong sometimes… Take the Baby Swap, for example.[✿]

15 ‘You take wonderful care of her, Crowley, truly. I must say I was a tad, err, _doubtful_ at first, but she turned out to be one lucky snake, didn’t she?’[✿]

16 The truth was that he looked rather choked and awkward about it, but let’s not tell him that and make it all worse, yeah?[✿]

**Author's Note:**

> comments and kudos sustain me ♡


End file.
